Charles Dickens on Page, Stage, and Screen

An Upper-Level Author Study

OVERVIEW

Charles Dickens revolutionized the novel and shaped modern understandings of his period. In this course, we will study Charles Dickens’s novels to better understand their historical, cultural, and formal significance. Additionally, we will examine the many illustrations, public readings, and adaptations (both on stage and in film) that accompanied and succeeded the novels. These supplementary texts molded Victorian readers’ understanding of the novel genre, and they continue to influence our interpretation of Dickens’s works and our memory of the Victorian period. Some of the stage and film adaptations have become canonical works in their own right. We will use these adaptations to explore Dickens’s influence on different cultures and periods, and we will also investigate the reasons for his novels’ enduring appeal. This class will ask you to suspend the initial impulse to declare that “the book is always better!” and instead develop new strategies and criteria for evaluating and appreciating literary adaptations. We will focus on four of Dickens’s major works—The Christmas Carol, Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, and The Mystery of Edwin Drood—and their accompanying adaptations. In addition to completing your daily reading, you will also be expected to attend four film screenings. Assignments will include an in-class performance, one short paper, one longer paper, and two exams.

OBJECTIVES

To analyze the prominent themes, narrative structures, stylistic details, and social commentary in select works by Charles Dickens

To situate Dickens’s novels within their historical, cultural, and formal contexts

To explore the history of adaptation

To familiarize ourselves with iconic adaptations that reflect Dickens’s influence on specific cultures and periods

To challenge fidelity-based theories of adaptation and develop new strategies and criteria for evaluating and appreciating literary adaptations

To investigate the enduring appeal of Dickens’s novels through the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries

Assignment 1: A 3-5 page analytical paper that explains how one of the adaptations we have discussed (play, illustration, or public reading) complicates, challenges, or enhances an issue or theme from Dickens’s novel.

Assignment 2: Option 1: A 6-8 page comparative paper that addresses how at least two different adapters approach the narrative challenges of Great Expectations and reflects on the interpretive significance of those approaches. Option 2: A creative adaptation/continuation of Great Expectations that deliberately responds to the novel’s narrative challenges and furthers a particular interpretation of the novel. In other words, there should be an interpretive thesis driving your authorial choices. The creative piece can take many forms, including film, script, graphic novel, new ending, or embedded text (those who choose film may work collaboratively on the creative piece). Additionally, you must submit an analytical paper of 4-6 pages explaining your critical choices and performing a close-reading of your creative piece. You should also consider how your work responds to other adaptations we have studied.

Unit 4. The Unfinished and Unfinishable Dickens

Topics: Detective fiction, death of the author, completions

Week 12: Detective Plot

Dickens’s The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870) (chapters 1-12)

Week 13: Unfinished Endings

Dickens’s The Mystery of Edwin Drood (chapters 13-23)

Week 14: Trial of John Jasper

In-Class Activity: Students will participate in a trial similar to the Trial of John Jasper conducted by the Dickens Fellowship in 1914. In preparation for this trial, they will research proposed endings (I will provide them with a list of possible sources, many of which are available in the Burns library). They will defend or prosecute the accused using a combination of their own close readings, citations of secondary sources, and references to creative completions.